Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Making comments more accessible

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on October 17, 2008
in Accessibility and Work Life
. 2 Comments

I was just going through a list of sites that link here and stumbled back upon Russ Weakley’s Anatomy of a comment. Having wanted to try and tick all his boxes for a while, I think I’ve managed to make my comments section a little more accessible.

Russ identifies these attributes of a comment:

  1. Author name - who wrote the comment
  2. Authors url - the authors website
  3. Authors avatar - the digital representation of the author
  4. Permalink - a permanent link to the specific comment
  5. Number - A reference number for the specific comment
  6. Date - date of comment
  7. Time - time of comment
  8. Comment - the actual comment
  9. Edit this comment - allows authors to edit their comments
  10. Other comments by this person - see example
  11. Site owner flagging - some sort of visual distinction to shows comments from the site owner/s

At the time of his post (9th Feb 2008) my site showed the author’s name, comment date and time and the comment itself. That’s essentially the bare minimum.

If you check out any of my posts that have comments today, you’ll find the author’s name, their web site url, avatar (the little picture), a permalink to the comment, the comment number for that post, date, time, comment and site owner flagging. I might add an “other comments by this author” feature at some point.

Russ also discovered there are many ways in which permalinks are offered:

  1. Date
  2. Time
  3. Date and time (by far the most common option)
  4. A graphic icon
  5. The # symbol
  6. The word “permalink”
  7. Comment title

My site used the date and time version, but I’ve now also linked the comment number and added the text (permalink) after the date.

So what’s the point of all this? I’m not sure!

Perhaps I felt I had to fill in the gaps that Russ had identified. Perhaps my pedantic nature won’t allow me not to make this site as accessible as possible. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that last sentence which will no doubt bite me in the backside when people point out obvious omissions in accessibility on my site.

Russ was looking at this from a developer’s point of view. I’d like to hear the readers opinion.

So tell me, do you care? Do you ever bookmark comments or just the whole post? What about emails to friends and colleagues? Do you care that it’s comment number 45? Does it help or distract when the author’s posts are highlighted? Do avatars annoy you or do you like them?

Mothers will do anything to help their kids

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on October 15, 2008
in Random
. 6 Comments

This email came to the Melbourne PHP Users Group today:

Hello Ben
I am trying to urgently locate someone who could assist my son with a web programming Uni assignment, which needs to be finished by Friday. The person would be well remunerated.

I look forward to your reply.

Annette

To which I responded:

Hi Annette,

As a former University tutor, I’m abhorred by your request. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not trying to be rude or insulting, but your son’s University project is designed to test his ability to meet the requirements of his course, and I cannot condone offering assistance in this regard.

Please note that my views might not reflect those of the Melbourne PHP Users Group, but, as a group that promotes learning, I doubt any member would feel differently.

I wish your son the best of luck with his assignment.

Ben Balbo

Outrageous!

Update: 2008-10-16 16:16

Reply from Annette:

Hi Ben, thanks for your email. But, as you should have seen, I was asking for assistance ­ tutoring and mentoring ­ not asking for someone to do his assignment for him. There are times when we all need help, and while he left it a little late to seek assistance, I am trying to help him. Don’t kids get outside tutoring at all ages these days, from primary school to university level…

My Response:

[Re: misunderstanding the request]

I’m afraid your original email didn’t carry the sentiment you were
striving for. Asking for someone to:

Assist [your] son with a web programming Uni assignment, which needs
to be finished by Friday

sounds very different to asking for someone to tutor your son in PHP.

[Re: extra tuition and running out of time]

Absolutely, extra tuition is not uncommon. I think the problem here is the lateness, as you point out. I don’t begrudge you trying to help your son, but if he’s not able to make adequate use of the, in my experience, extremely accommodating support network of his lecturers and tutors and identify issues in his time management then there are larger issues at stake.

University courses are not solely designed to teach skills to students; there is as much of an emphasis on self learning, time management, communication skills, issue resolution, risk analysis, and so on. Universities teach people how to operate in a working environment. Employers consider University degrees to denote a person has the ability to work independently (whether by themselves or in teams) - something that is not assumed of high school graduates that enter the workforce without a degree.

I say all of this not to assume some position of authority or to be condescending, but to hopefully assist your son in completing his degree and benefit to the fullest extent possible. On a more personal note, I didn’t discover or fully comprehend any of this until the final year of my University degree and believe it would have helped me enormously if I had worked on the non-academic skills I should have developed in the previous years.

Regards,
Ben Balbo